Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Hansard source

Well, indeed, what would I expect? I suppose Senator Fierravanti-Wells is quite right. That a government as desperate as this government would stoop to using the sacred ground of tobacco control to attempt to score a political point we should not be surprised about, but it is still worth putting on the record that this coalition, particularly this Liberal Party, have always opposed measures which diminish the democratic process and which make it harder for the parliament to scrutinise the laws being made that govern Australians. We have therefore always viewed Henry VIII clauses with great trepidation and concern, and our consistent position on such provisions is not going to change merely because the government has tied its use of a Henry VIII clause into a patent public good in the form of the plain packaging regime.

So let us hope that in a somewhat less non-partisan fashion the government is able to proceed with measures for tobacco control. Let us build some bipartisanship around these things which once existed and which essentially still do exist, I have to say, with respect to this legislation with the exception of the second bill. It is extremely important that we today capitalise on the advantages obtained by this new plain packaging regime. It would be good to monitor its effect. It would be good to confirm that it does make a difference even though, as I have said, I think that some have exaggerated the extent of the difference it will make, and it would be good to use this as a further basis for good, empirical evidence of what tobacco control at the appropriate level and on the appropriate scale can do to wind back rates of smoking in this country and the rest of the world. If this provides a model or template for other countries to follow, Australia will have done something very significant and very worth while. To that extent, I commend the Tobacco Plain Packaging Bill to the House but cannot take the same approach with respect to the trademarks amendment bill.